Expected Outcomes
Institutional Outcomes
The bold institutional changes proposed by this project will result in increased
capacity for all partners, sustainability of project outcomes, and ultimately
support student achievement now and into the future. Districts will educate their
counselors and principals, provide
release time for teachers, and align their curricula with national and state
standards. District hiring practices will value placing qualified teachers in
every class. Colleges and universities will change their courses for preservice
teachers, understand and support science reform efforts, implement new teaching
strategies in college classrooms, make changes in requirements for endorsement
that reflect these expectations, and initiate and support recruitment of new
teachers from diverse backgrounds.
Higher Education Faculty Outcomes
Faculty will become
fluent in the national standards for science content and teaching, change their
courses to align with these standards, and work with the College of Education to
revise preservice requirements to reflect these changes. Through preservice
science methods courses, faculty will model appropriate pedagogy for diverse
learners and help their students learn these methods and strategies. Faculty will
also work more closely with schools, districts, and teachers and therefore need to
become more knowledgeable about the constraints and opportunities for change in
schools. Faculty will strengthen their own science education research agenda,
collecting and analyzing data to document the impact of the project activities.
Preservice Teacher Outcomes
Preservice teacher preparation reforms in the NCOSP are designed to change teacher
classroom behavior by improving teacher understanding of both content and pedagogy.
The desired outcome is teachers who can identify the content focus of lessons, address
student prior knowledge and misconceptions, provide students opportunities to
develop conceptual knowledge of subject, provide context for subject, facilitate
application of concepts by students, and address the nature of science.
Inservice Teacher Outcomes
The outcomes for inservice teachers mirror those for preservice teachers.
Teacher understanding of content and pedagogical content will be evaluated using
embedded assessments currently being developed by Horizon Research.
Grades 3-10 Student Outcomes
The results of the combined changes in teacher preparation and teacher professional
development are expected to lead to sustainable, improved student outcomes.
Improvements in content understanding, understanding of the nature of science,
attitudes toward science, and science course-taking patterns are anticipated.
More high school students will explore and pursue science teaching as a career.
The existing achievement gap between different student populations will decrease.
These outcomes will be assessed through scores on the state science assessment
(Grades 5, 8 and 10) as well as performance on formative and summative assessments
tied to the curriculum at all grades. Students will complete surveys about
attitudes toward science and the nature of science to detect changes. Data from
districts will be collected about student course-taking. All data will be
disaggregated by racial/ethnic group, gender and (as far as possible) by
socioeconomic status (e.g. Title I).
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